To “Man Up” or Not “Man Up”

Twitter exchange between conservative GOProud Chairman and a sensitive soul.

Pictured here is a Twitter exchange between a sensitive twitter user, Thomas Bloom and Chris Barron, the chairman of the conservative gay Republican organization GOProud. You may remember them as the idiots who invited Ann Coulter to speak at a conference last year.

To me, they don’t really appear to have any agenda other than mock the left

What do you think of the expression “man up?” Personally, I hate it. It just sounds stupid to me and it’s as if you don’t know what else to say or you don’t have a compelling reason to get someone to behave the way you want them to behave so you insult their manhood. It’s the language of Sarah Palin’s anti-thought process gut-instinct mentality.

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Oh it’s stupid, for sure. Part of the kneejerk sexism encoded in everyday language. Heck, look how easily someone responded by calling Bloom “pussified”; clearly they don’t think about what they’re saying, and if they did, they wouldn’t care. Men and Women are different in their world, and consciously or not they prefer to be Men, cuz look how badly Women get treated, especially by people who think like them… oh wait, there I go, applying conscious thought to the whole thing! Silly liberal, wondering why anyone does anything…

And since you asked the other day, I don’t recall exactly when I learned the term “othering”, but I probably read it on a blog somewhere, likely one dedicated to challenging and deconstructing sexism, racism or homophobia. I read a lot of blogs like that, so I see words like “othering”, “privilege” and “silencing” used across all of them.

Oh yeah, I was going to suggest an alternative to “man up”, something I did learn here in the eNZed: “harden up”. It kind of comes from the same place of insensitivity to others, part of the frontier mentality that settled this country, but it’s not overtly sexist, and a bit naughty-sounding. “Crap, the heater’s broken.” “Oh, harden up and throw on a jumper.”

I also like to say “grow a spine” rather than “grow a pair”. Insensitive to invertebrates, perhaps, but someone’s gotta be the underdog.

I recently met an attractive, somewhat younger guy at a party who I thought could be dating material for the future. We exchanged numbers and he said to look him up on Facebook, which I did. After connecting to him, I suddenly realized he was not only a rabidly conservative Republican; but also a highly gung-ho member of GOProud. I never got that sense when I first met him… but his true colors came very much to the light when I started reading his wall posts.

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About Marc Felion

Marc Felion is the co-host and producer of the Feast of Fun podcast. He lives in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago with his partner and co-host Fausto Fernós. He loves sci-fi, murder mysteries and pumping iron.